As she explains, it does not make him feel like any less of a fool and a failure of a father. She is so very earnest in the telling, though, and so artlessly brought down to this pathetic state, he is inclined to think she is telling the truth. "The saying goes, there is truth in wine," Ned says dryly, "but I do not think you care very much whether it is wine or some other spirit." Bottles of every kind lie about, empty or smashed or both. The place smells like a distillery. She looks as though she hasn't bathed in days.

He exhales. "If I were just another man, that story would suffice. We both took comfort and went our ways." Ned's eyes flicker down to where she touches his knee, nothing sensual whatsoever in that touch now. How a few days could change everything. "But I am not just another man. And whether you intended it or not, I have hurt the son that I love so dearly, in a time when he needed healing, not more wounds. You could have prevented that, and you didn't. I would rather you have simply set out to hurt me, than to keep me in the dark and let me hurt my own son that way."

A father's wish: to spare his children pain, to bear it himself instead rather than let them suffer. It is torture of the worst kind to be the one to cause it.

"It was thoughtless at best, cruel at worst, Eponine." He turns over her hand, looks at old scars and new. "Are you trying to punish yourself now for it?"